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Thursday, 9 April 2015

Always Join a Club of Which You Weren't a Member: Mike Duffy and the Senate

Abstract:Whatever happens in the Mike Duffy trial, let’s
not forget one thing: Duffy watched the Senate for decades, and he wanted a
part of it.Whatever might be said of
his actions, or of the (comically alleged) hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil,
see-no-evil members of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s most intimate inner circle,
the Duffster knew, from long, long experience, that the Senate was the place to
be for easy money.That the Duffster, an
ultimate insider, knew what the Senate was like for so long, and so desperately
longed to get into it, should make all Liberal and Conservative supporters
wonder why they so enthusiastically support, for purely partisan reasons, the
red chamber.That’s red as in your money
disappearing.

No-one seems to be all that preoccupied by the fact that a guy who reported on politicians for decades so desperately wanted to be an unelected one. I submit that that is a problem.

Sure the Duffy trial is annoying, but let’s not forget that
the Duffster was watching it for decades; he knew what was going on, and he
knew what he could get, and he wanted it, badly.Mix in some party work, and the “Senate”
becomes a taxpayer-funded propaganda instrument, even more expensive than the $75
million you already spent (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/that-75-million-in-ads-you-paid-for/article23824771/).
To what extent are Peter Mansbridge and Lisa
LaFlamme already sizing up their opportunities, solidifying their contacts,
making sure they’re at the head of the line?You’d have to be mentally absent to think that Mansbridge and LaFlamme
are not going to be your handsomely-paid and expensed senatorial representatives just a few years from
now.

Key thing to remember about the Duffster, lest we all lose
sight of it, is that the Duffster was a Hill veteran for years.He knew the ins ands outs, and the
in-and-outs.He angled like an obsessed
man for his appointment, even launching lawsuits against those he thought hurt
his entitlement opportunities (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Duffy). Now, you could say, well, Mike was just tired
of being a journalist and wanted to get in on the real political action in a
partisan way his “journalistic” profession had “technically” always denied him.I’d almost respect him for that—Mike Duffy
waking up one day and saying, “Gee, I’m a Conservative, and I’m going to
dedicate the rest of my life to that cause.”

But no, that’s not how it works.Mike Duffy was there, all the time, and
though he may have been more craven than most, he admired and was utterly
smitten by the lawlessness of the entire Senate, the easy access to taxpayer
money, the unashamed and mock-serious gloating of the party hack
appointees.He watched it for decades,
and he wanted a part of that moral- and tax- and cost-free zone.Who wouldn’t?It says much, much indeed that Liberal and Conservative supporters have
cherished, for partisan and publicly extortionate reasons, a body that, from
its origins, was intended to preserve privilege, as opposed to initiative (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_senate).
Good ol’ Bertie Brown, the great
Conservative farmer-senate-reformer Senator, was able to ring up over $330 000
in expenses in just one year (http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadas-only-elected-senator-also-the-most-expensive).
I’ve never met Bert Brown, but I know
kinfolk like his, and all of them would be ashamed and disgusted to know that
they had ever known such an individual as him.His family will for generations be remembered as the one that used
Canadian taxpayers for massive personal emolument while pretending to be on
their sides.

Nancy Ruth, who objected to cold cheese and crumbled
crackers on airplanes, raised a valid point when she said that “flying around
the world” (in her case, for basic Senate purposes, Toronto to Ottawa), was
something that others “just didn’t understand” (http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/04/01/liberal-nancy-ruth-says-auditors-dont-understand-what-being-senator-is-like.html).
When you’re accustomed to such
entitlement, you just go with the flow and take it as it comes, and it does
become very easy to blend the private with the professional.Yet it *can*, pace entitled Nancy Ruth,be
hard to differentiate between legitimate personal expenses and professional
ones.They *can* blend. And sometimes,
there *are* grey areas.But, by
appointing only party hacks and promoters, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has
clearly upped the game—to be a Senator now, as Pamela Wallin and Duffy have
shown, is not really about not being very clear on the already rather fuzzy
rules; it’s about exploiting whatever fuzziness there is (Dean del Mastro,
anyone?) for partisan Conservative purposes to indebt Canadian taxpayers for
ideological reasons.

And there, really, is the rub.Mike Duffy, who knew what was going on for
decades, wanted a piece of the action.Stephen Harper, operating in a personal moral-free zone with respect to
taxpayers, liked the cut of the Duffster’s jib, and wanted some of the Duffster’s
ample influence for his own: hence, the Senate.